Recommended Posts

Now I'm unsure if this should be under developers section or not so moderators you can move it there if you believe it should be there, but why are there still no ships from the first major naval combat in WW2 part of our game?

Anyway, I'm talking about the Battle of the River Plate (Montevideo). This was an incredible battle between the Graf spee and of course the HMS Exeter (CA), HMS Ajax and of course HMNZS Achilles (IE: part of the NZ division, so was manned by a NZ crew) which were both Leander class cruisers. This battle is famous not just for the ships involved but how the German ship was effectively out thought by the allied ships.

The reason i'm really surprised about it was that it was the first blow the German forces really suffered in the war and the importance to the Allied forces cannot be spoken of high enough. To give you an indication there were ticker tape parades, award ceremonies given by the King and Winston Churchill, etc for the crews upon them returning home in 1940, and this was a huge boost of morale to the people of the UK - at a time where Germany was basically walking over everything.

Now did WG miss out on an opportunity to fix this with the introduction of the RN line, as we already have the Tier 6 tech tree "HMNZS Leander" (no idea why they have it down as RN, as again part of the NZ division and I believe it's the NZ version which is played in game - maybe it's for game dynamics they've done this, but unlike the fabricated Russian ships this ship was legitimately a NZ vessel so technically should be a commonwealth ship) and the soon to be released "HMAS Perth" (a modified Leander class) already, so the odds of WG now including another one seem exceedingly remote. This was a real chance to bring in a vessel from this famous battle but they've opted to continue to exclude this famous battle. Maybe in this instance they could have gone for the Ajax as the tech tree ship amd whilst not the original ship it would have been a nice touch.

Who knows, maybe they'll include the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter at a later date, however it was the 2 Leander class cruisers which were the difference and actually saved the Exeter from being destroyed (as all of her guns were taken out and her engine was badly damaged) so IMHO it would seem very strange to introduce the Exeter at a later date, over one of the 2 Leanders.

This leads me to the next question.

How does WG decide on what ships to make as premiums? Lets take the HMAS Perth as an example (and with no disrespect to her or her crew​) as there were a number of Leander class ships which WG could easily have chosen. All had very interesting lives inc the Perth and I guess here in lies the problem, what makes her stand out more than the others?

For instance here's a quick run down of just 3 other Leander class vessels

HMAS Sydney, literally vanished without a trace with the lose of all lives in the Indian ocean fighting a German raider (Kormoran) in 1941 and they only discovered her wreck and what happened to her in 2008. Had a number of engagements in the Med' including sinking 2 Italian ships. (a CL and a DD) . TBH this was the one i thought they'd model an Australian Mod Leander under.

HMS Ajax, owing to her heroics in the River Plate, Ajax Ontario was named after her with the street names being named after the crew! WG even did a video on her but surprisingly left out this amazing information. Let's face it how many ships could say this!

HMS/HMNZS (1936) / RNZN (1941) Achilles, a NZ division ship from 1936 and played a major role in the Battle of River plate, also the first RN/commonwealth ship to receive Radar! Also played heself in the 1956 movie "Battle of the River Plate", so was very well known. Shortly after the war she was later sold to India where she became INS Delhi, where she lead a long life. 2 of her 4 turrets have been saved with one in NZ and the other in India as permanent memorials to her.

NB: here's a thought, if they'd opted for Achilles why couldn't you choose her as HMNZS Achilles or INS Delhi? Same ship, same cammo etc, just a different name. This would have been a nice touch to both the NZ and Indian players.

So what made WG choose the Perth over the others?

Was it because she was a modified Leander, so has a slightly different appearance to the standard Leander class? NB: the 3 Australian vessels were all of the modified variety owing to Engine room adjustments giving them 2 funnels.

Was it because she was sunk facing IJN forces in a fleet where an USN ship was also sunk to get NA interest in it as well? IE: USN Houston. This does seem like a strange decision to me as there are a number of ships already in game which took part of this engagement (Ryujo, Mogami, fubuki) but maybe they're looking to do a reinactment of the battle. Maybe we'll get Houston shortly as well.

Was it simply a case of we need to please the Australian market, and it was in the first book they came across which had one in it?

Was it simply because they have a gimmic (smoke) and simply said, lets try this out on the new line, we think it'll work well with the RN cruisers because it needs smoke and because it's not the same as the standard Leander class, we can at the same time introduce the Commonwealth line with a whole new ship!

Was it because they know the Leander was actually a NZ ship and they didn't want to have 2 NZ ships by introducing the Achilles?

Was it that they simply turned the first of the Modified Leanders into a premium. I hope not but it makes for an easy decision for WG.

I'm sure WG doesn't just randomly pick them so it'd be fascinating to find out how and why they choose specific ships to turn into the premium type. I have to admit at one stage I thought the ship had to have been sunk in battle to even consider them becoming one but both the Belfast and Saipan prove otherwise.

Maybe theres a video out there on it I've missed but it would be fascinating to know the thought processes/decision making behind how they choose a premium ship.

Share on other sites

how bout because IJN and USN have more complete tech tree than other nation ship

​Hi Harpoon,

Do you mean because they've done a lot more on the IJN and US it's easier for them to focus on there engagements/ship types? It kind of makes sense as that would mean less work for them but it's very sad if that's the case. However this is still one of the most famous battles in WW2 so it continues to surprise me nothing has been done to reflect it's significance.

Link to post

Share on other sites

The G3 is the battlecruiser design - the armour is not equivalent to ships of similar tonnage but then again, they're 32kn ships with 9 16" guns. With some typical WG "balance" they might be playable.

The N3 is what I think you're referring to. Well armoured for their tonnage, powerful 9 18" guns but slow at 23kn. Again, with some WG tweaks these could be playable.

The RN TX Cruiser is already here, the Minotaur. I think the "true" heavy cruisers of the RN will appear as Premium ships for now and "maybe" branched off the light cruiser tree later on.

The RN Carriers might not have the air wing sizes of the USN and IJn but many of their larger CV's have armoured decks and good torpedo defences - with some WG tweaks, eh they're playable.

There are enough RN DD designs all the way to arguably TX, though TX could also be a paper ship.

The key point I was debating was that their "ship tree's aren't comparable to the completeness of the IJN and USN ship trees". I am saying they are.

Tee

They are. But the documents regarding the G3 BB designs are very obscure. And the Royal Navy Archives probably hold them. And the RN Archives have always been reluctant to let a Belorussian company scour all over it.

RN Heavy cruiser designs for tier 9 and 10s are unknown if any.

As for BBs, speed can be tweaked, AA can be tweaked, but armor is not something easily tweaked for gameplay.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Before I start - if you're not sure then why post? Or, look it up and then post.

Here's the fault in this logic:

USN - Cruiser TIV is a paper ship. BB TX was a paper ship.

IJN - Cruiser TIX and TX are paper ships. BB TVIII was never completed and TIX is a paper ship.

The RN is roughly in the same boat here as the USN and IJN. Mostly real ships with some paper ships to bulk out the tree.

Tee

if you must know i was talking about the DDs only, i know for a fact that the british DIDNT have anything that can compete with monty or yammy, even on paper, monty even had her kneel layed down so she wasnt even a "paper ship" the.brittish only had the HMS Lion planned and she would.not have fitted in T10 at all , and dont even get me started on the CAs, heck they dont have anything that can be placed above T7, the york was the last 8inch CA that they built, if WG wanted to start a line with the LEAST paper/uncompleted ships there was only IJN and USN to choose from, as they were the ONLY lines to field the level of tech we see in T9–10 ships.

and fyi i checked, there ISNT a DD that would fit T8 and T9, their armament is too shitty(4*1 120 guns i loled) , not unless WG decides to give them gearing ROF, i said "correct me if im wrong " because i knew the RN had MANY DDs under construction at the time of the war, but the.designs were outdated ones rangeing back to WW1, and after WW2 they used all their new knowlage learned in WW2 to make the darling class, which would fit in T10 quite well, but didnt have any intermediate advancements in between, but there was the possibility that there were "prototype designs" like the USS porter made by the RN so i wasnt 100% sure, but if you decided to be butthurted by my reply then so be it as you didnt rebuke my comment with any facts and just a"if you're not sure then why post? Or, look it up and then post." which wasnt very nice

Link to post

Share on other sites

1. Make your own research (not C&P on Wikipedia) over several historian literature, have some historical blueprint with you.

2. Propose your tree build and make a proposal.

3. Go make an appointment with WG head Office and see if they would discuss and assist with this new tree with you.

4. Pray for sites like wiki leaks that they leak more info from war museums for balancing purpose.

5. Hope WG will reply to you for more info.

6. Repeat 1

7. Repeat 2-5

Hope this works, I heard that's how they made 2 new tech trees in World of Tanks.

problem with that is that tanks were mass produced, and there are a lot of blueprints and tech info and sample left behind(comparatively), while many warwhips had almost total secracy behid their construction, so it's gonna be a heck lot harder to do that for WOWS

Share on other sites

if you must know i was talking about the DDs only, i know for a fact that the british DIDNT have anything that can compete with monty or yammy, even on paper, monty even had her kneel layed down so she wasnt even a "paper ship" the.brittish only had the HMS Lion planned and she would.not have fitted in T10 at all , and dont even get me started on the CAs, heck they dont have anything that can be placed above T7, the york was the last 8inch CA that they built, if WG wanted to start a line with the LEAST paper/uncompleted ships there was only IJN and USN to choose from, as they were the ONLY lines to field the level of tech we see in T9–10 ships.

and fyi i checked, there ISNT a DD that would fit T8 and T9, their armament is too shitty(4*1 120 guns i loled) , not unless WG decides to give them gearing ROF, i said "correct me if im wrong " because i knew the RN had MANY DDs under construction at the time of the war, but the.designs were outdated ones rangeing back to WW1, and after WW2 they used all their new knowlage learned in WW2 to make the darling class, which would fit in T10 quite well, but didnt have any intermediate advancements in between, but there was the possibility that there were "prototype designs" like the USS porter made by the RN so i wasnt 100% sure, but if you decided to be butthurted by my reply then so be it as you didnt rebuke my comment with any facts and just a"if you're not sure then why post? Or, look it up and then post." which wasnt very nice

About your comments:

This is what you said "no, they, dont have a T9-10BB or top tier DDs(not sure bout this plz comfirm)" to my reply from another poster who wrote "how bout because IJN and USN have more complete tech tree than other nation ship"

I've successfully argued that the RN ship tree is comparably full for DD, Cruiser, BB and CV, relying only on a few more paper ships than what the USN and IJN trees have.

About the Montana class BB's

Their keel was not laid. Please provide sources saying otherwise.

About the lack of a TX BB to compete against Montana and Yamato

True. The N3 is the most armed and armoured of their designs yet is on a ~50k ton hull and runs at 23kn. Not TX material. Then again, many other paper ships didn't truly exist other. It's not a point to exclude the entire RN BB line from existing. WG can (and will - watch this space) create a full complete TI-X BB tree without a doubt.

About the RN CA's.

True, that's why I said (others have too) that it's likely the RN CA's will be premium ships first or perhaps a sub-branch of the CL line. Easy. Don't sweat it.

About RN DD's "being outdated WW1 designs" and "too shitty" guns

The Tribal class had 8x 4.7" quick firing guns. Very comparable to mid- Tier DD's. A proposed Tribal design had 10 4.7" guns. All RN DD's historically are well regarded ships that performed no worse than their allies and enemies counterparts.

In much the same way that WG have tweaked the RN CL's to fit into WOWS, the same will be done for the RN DD's. Gun size and amount of torps is not the be all to end all. Detection radius, Radar, Agility, reload time, smoke, etc are all other means to tweak a ship into fitting into the tiers it needs to.

There were also paper designs for other types of DD's that can fit into mid-high tiers along with enough conjectural material to build high teir DD's.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Indeed the role of each nations' armed forces are not to be underestimated. So is their civilian population. In terms of naval action however, the center of fleet action will always be the Pacific Theater. And that means the IJN and the USN, where both built huge fleets in anticipation of a "decisive battle".

If anything, Commonwealth Naval Forces had some of their worst defeats when the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk for loss of some G4M bombers. It paved the way for Singapore and the entire SEA to fall to Imperial Japanese control. It also marked their exit from the PTO till late 1945.

It will probably require the Italian and French navies to be built up before you can have some historical battles featuring the RN. I am most looking forward to Mers-el-Kebir and Calabria.

As for naming ships, I am not WG, but so far with the exception of Molotov they seem to be named after lead ships, subgroup lead ships or museum ships.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Indeed the role of each nations' armed forces are not to be underestimated. So is their civilian population. In terms of naval action however, the center of fleet action will always be the Pacific Theater. And that means the IJN and the USN, where both built huge fleets in anticipation of a "decisive battle".

If anything, Commonwealth Naval Forces had some of their worst defeats when the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk for loss of some G4M bombers. It paved the way for Singapore and the entire SEA to fall to Imperial Japanese control. It also marked their exit from the PTO till late 1945.

For WW2 you mean, re your comment about the Pacific. For WW1, it was in the North Atlantic.

WOWS is not based solely in WW1 or WW2, it covers a period of time from the late 1800's to possibly late 40's.